Alphabet to fly in burritos to hungry students via drones

Several companies are now looking for ways of using autonomous drones and robots to ship products and food to users. Amazon and Wal-Mart want to use drones to cut down on delivery costs and time. Companies such as Starship are using ground robots to deliver take-out food. Alphabet seems to think this is a good bet. The parent company of Google is teaming up with Chipotle to test delivering burritos from a food truck near Virginia Tech, according to Bloomberg.

This collaboration is part of Alphabet's Project Wing and it will use hybrid drones that both fly like airplanes with fixed wings and hover like helicopters. Hovering is a critical skill for drones that make deliveries, of course. In this case, the Project Wing drone will deliver burritos while hovering and lowering them down on a winch.

This, however, is just a test as Alphabet hopes to improve its autonomous drone technology. It is hampered by regulations that keep commercial, unmanned vehicles from flying over people and being completely autonomous. Human operators need to standby to take over the controls of the drone if needed and the people receiving the burritos must be shielded. Given the complexities of the trial, Project Wing did not decide to deliver food to hungry college students because there is always a willing and captive consumer base. The project actually chose food because it is more challenging than other items such as small boxes, according to Bloomberg.

Like many other things dealing with autonomous drones, it will likely be a long time before the fruits of this research reach most consumers. However, the study is good for pushing technology in drones. UAV companies in general are preparing for commercial use, with Shenzhen's DJI leading the pack after conquering the consumer market. For drone makers, all these autonomous drone delivery tests might wind up useful sooner than for the average consumer.